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Has Immanuel Come?

There are some that say that Immanuel has not yet come. They point to a future time when this Immanuel of Isaiah will arrive. Let us examine the evidence first,

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. (Isaiah 7:14-16 NKJV)

If we deny, then that this applies to Christ, we are no better than those that deny that the Messiah has yet appeared. They will usually apply this text not to the Jesus that was born nearly two thousand years ago, but to the woman and child in Revelations 12.1-4

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. (Revelation 12:1-4 NKJV)

They will usually start with Israel in 1948, and declared that the land torn away from her is the womb or child, or use the idea that Israel must declare Christ as Messiah because He can become Immanuel. No matter, really, they tie all of bible prophecy to a distant land of memory, forgetting that the capital city of this land was called Sodom and Egypt.

There will be a person that does this, indeed, who unites Israel and who all the world will declare the son of God; however, it will not be the one that these people are expecting. Instead, it will be the False Prophet.

I will not go into the fact that Revelation 12 is a chapter that contains all of human history, but I will say that anyone who denies that Christ is the Immanuel is denying the Scriptures. They will point out that He was never called ‘Immanuel’ while on earth, but that was never a requirement of the Scriptures. Instead, Immanuel points only to the Incarnation, when indeed, God was with us in the flesh.

This was affirmed by the Apostle Matthew,

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23 NKJV)

There is no specific requirement that Christ be declared the Messiah by Israel – and indeed, just the opposite.The idea that we are to look to a future figure that united Christianity and Judaism, perhaps when with Islam, is not a holy idea, but one which turns the eyes and hearts of the faithful to that with is perdition.

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Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of the Free State, analyzing Paul’s model of atonement in Galatians. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013), a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013), and Praying in God's Theater, Meditations on the Book of Revelation (Wipf and Stock, 2014).

14 Comments

Quote:
or use the idea that Israel must declare Christ as Messiah because He can become Immanuel.
There is no specific requirement that Christ be declared the Messiah by Israel – and indeed, just the opposite. End quote.

Polycarp, just a gentle reminder that Christ and Messiah are the exact same word in two different languages. Perhaps you could word it that Jesus be declared as Messiah.

That issue is actually beside the point of my comment. Our modern day terminology usually has one connotation for Christ and another for Messiah. This ought not be. They are the same word and mean the same thing. They are also the same person, Jesus of Nazareth.

To answer your question, Jesus is the Christ and Messiah whether or not Israel as a nation recognizes Him as such. Further, the entire thread of Isaiah 7-12 is Messianic. Certain portions highlight the Messiah more forthright than others, but Immanuel certainly must be the Messiah, born of a virgin. While His future coming will result in His presence here on earth, He is God-with-us now, in the hearts of those who trust in Him.

I notice you didn’t change your post, so perhaps you don’t see what I’m getting at about Messiah and Christ being the exact same word.

But Polycarp, you haven’t addressed why you would make a comment like “Israel must declare Christ as Messiah” when the two words mean the same thing? John 1:41 is pretty clear. Anytime the word Messiah is used, it is synonymous with Christ. Anytime Christ is used, Messiah is an acceptable substitute.